Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Lonely at the top

Um... if Paul "you are free to leave at anytime" O. does not pull through then who indeed are the contenders? Kicking Pat Gelsinger? Sean Baloney? Andy "keep it legal" Bryant? Or does someone have to come in from outside to really clean up?

7 Comments:

If you look at the bench of leaders that Intel has, it's not pretty. I agree, all of the potential good leaders have moved on, seeing Intel for what it is...a sinking ship. This started many years ago with the departure of David House. Most of the good leaders are now running their own shows, very successfully I might add.

Look at the corporate roster and you don't see much.

Gelsinger will NEVER advance beyond where he is now to be CEO or President. Far too much of a jerk.

Dadi? Nope.

Anand? Doubtful, but he may make it simply because he's the last man standing.

Bob Baker? Dark horse, but totally doubtful.

Bryant? Too old and unhealthy. Ever looked at this guy up close? I don't think he's even going to live 5 years longer, he's that sick.

Maloney is probably the best contender, but he's arrogant and pompous.

Time will tell but I think Paul is turning things around. Paul has none of the hang ups noted by anonymous however if being a pompous jerk is any kind of hindrance then 99.9% of all corporate CEO's are guilty!

If Sean Baloney ever ascends to the CEO position within Intel, I will tenure my 2-week notice to whoever my boss is at the time. That idiot was at the helm while two divisions sank to the ground in flames. Now I fear he'll do the same thing to the Sales & Marketing even though that's supposed to be "his thing" ... whatever. He's a dork who needs to be given a swift kick to the butt straight out the door.

ref: Baloney. Never have truer words been spoken, I have yet to find one colleague that has a single positive word to say about his skills.

The reality is he is a superb political player and has worked hard to fill his immediate surroundings with sycophants and compliant underlings, it seems miraculous that this Brit survived the cull. He should have been moved out years ago, he has presided over two disasters, why not three?

I therefore expect he will soon be no.2 in the hierarchy. Let's see what Monday brings.

Most recently Santa Clara-based Intel Corp.'s (NASDAQ:INTC) director of worldwide solution sales, McKinnon will help the Bristol, U.K.-based company build out its customer sales operations from its U.S. offices in San Jose.

ClearSpeed is a specialist semiconductor company that makes chips, boards, software tools and applications which accelerate data-intensive applications at extremely low power.

McKinnon's responsibilities wil include building out the company's sales, business development, outbound marketing, and technical customer support and solutions.

As an Intel shareholder I'm outraged that Intel's board and CEO hasn't cleaned up the executive team.

Its unfathomable that a company can loose a near global monopoly to a competitor one tenth its size without major failure in judgement and execution in the top ranks.

Several years ago an article appeared praising Sean Maloney as the chief architect of Intel's expansion into the cellular market. The article stated Maloney's star at Intel would rise or fall on the success of that venture. We now know this failure cost Intel $$ billions. To squander that much money requires one not only to fail to execute to plan, but failure in judgement and courage to exit when its clear one cannot succeed, and before one waste's billions of shareholder value.

Instead of firing him Intel promotes the guy to a role where he can harm the entire company!

While not the only management problem, this is an egregious case of lack of accountability and threat to shareholder's interest.

Any seasoned Intel shareholder understands the risks of the industry, however, without executive management accountability there's little hope Intel can stop the slide to mediocrity.

Grove, Barret, and Noyce were LUCKY in grabbing that initial PC business from IBM. Intel has surfed that wave of luck and now has to rely on true business savvy to create or catch the next swell. There is no business savvy leadership; only critics. There has been no savvy; only surfers.